Tag: #MRCSoMe

Thanks Amanda Taylor for this pre-conference photo, found on Twitter – after the MRC event at UCLan on 22nd January! Which was apt considering the conference topic; consequences of digital media within social work. The conference addressed some of the changes in practice bought about through programmes like Twitter and Facebook. How we risk finding ourselves online without realising it or how a careless comment or unguarded moment can be captured and uploaded for all to see. We might not think too much about the permanence of digital footprints but identity is no longer under our control. The need to take digital care within professional practice is is just one aspect of society which has undergone great changes in the past decade.

For the Keynote I suggested seven critical lens for exploring the social impact of the internet and digital equality.

Opportunities to bring out the digital soapbox are always welcome. The world of digital technology has moved fast in a short time. As with all social change, we can be so busy keeping up and adapting we don’t always stop to ask the questions around the wider social implications. We become uncritical adopters of digital ways of working. However, as internet users we are already in positions of power and privilege. With that power comes responsibility to ensure a wider and more inclusive equality.

I’ve been lucky enough to work in partnership with social work and health and social care teams with regard to promoting safe digital working as well as digitally inclusive practices. Together we’ve worked with students to raise awareness of how the social shift to digital-by-default risks excluding many sections of the population, including those already marginalised and disempowered who might arguably be in greatest need of support. Social work practitioners, and others who work closely with service users, are often in the unique position of being both sides of the digital divide. They may have all the advantages of digital inclusion at work and home but can come into contact with the realities of digital exclusion on a daily basis.

In an increasingly digital society where the platforms of the public sphere are themselves becoming digitised, to be digitally excluded is to be silenced and rendered invisible. The tension is how on the one hand the internet offers a voice to those previously excluded and marginalised but without the prerequisite conditions of access and use, the same individuals can find themselves silenced.

After the Keynote I collected together a number of resources, included here for anyone wanting to explore the issues more closely. My own publications in this area include:

Watling, S. and Rogers, J. (2012) Social Work in a Digital Society. London: Sage.